The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) awarded KSC’s Bricowlage the rank of “Distinguished” in their 2025 NCTE Recognizing Excellence in Art and Literary Magazines (REALM) program. Kate Tirabassi, Communications professor and affiliate English faculty as well as Bricowlage’s staff advisor, is a member of NCTE and submitted the magazine for consideration. REALM recognizes excellence in arts and literary magazines from K-12 through to college. Bricowlage’s submission was the only publication from a New Hampshire college to be recognized in 2025.
Bricowlage, KSC’s creative writing journal, released its first print publication last year. “The group started during COVID,” Tirabassi commented. “It was harder to get people together or get the word out.” In its earlier years, the group had been unable to print and operated more as a workshop for creative writers. “We ended up publishing online… At that point, we had no budget because we were barely a club, so print just wasn’t an option,” said current President and senior Evan Parker. Parker set out to change this when joining the Bricowlage e-board. “My big goal was, well, this is a magazine. Let’s try to publish something.”
According to Parker, there were difficulties in keeping attendance up at club meetings. “It feels weird to say they weren’t enjoying the writing part of it, but I think it can be really stressful to write in the same room as a bunch of people, and a lot of people don’t love following prompts.” To work around this, Bricowlage changed the scope of work they sought out. “For that year it was more loose,” says Parker. “We wanted to market outside of writing. Some people were drawing on paper, some people brought tablets and did digital art.”
“I think it’s amazing,” said senior Kayla Turner, vice-president of Bricowlage. “Evan and I are both English education majors, so we know a lot about NCTE. I thought it was such a privilege to get an award, especially because we’ve only been going for a couple years.” Turner began as treasurer of Bricowlage and spoke on the struggles of reviving it. “Before we had [senior Sawyer Culberson, social media manager], I was doing social media. I’m really grateful for Sawyer. He’s just great at designing. He goes the extra mile in reposting posts from other literary magazines.”
Parker and Turner both hope that Bricowlage can continue once they graduate. “That has definitely been a huge worry of mine,” said Parker. “We don’t have a huge core meeting group; I don’t know who to pass the torch to.”
“The president’s graduating, the vice-president’s graduating, the social media manager is graduating,” said Turner. “We really need people who are looking to get involved in leadership. It would be really sad to watch the project get built all the way up only to have it then shut down again.”
According to Parker, the organization’s second magazine is due for publication in early spring. “We’re hoping to send it to print at some point in February,” Bricowlage’s president said.
May Cassidy can be contacted at
mcassidy@kscequinox.com
